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Talent Release Forms

Talent Release  Forms

Brief: This shows the talent release forms we asked the actors to sign before shooting which legally allow us to use them (in our footage) in the music video.

Location Permission:

 

Before filming at Camden Town, we Emailed Camden council to see whether we was allowed to film there. When looking on their website, we noticed that the council charge for filming in the town centre. Therefore I emailed them asking about the prices and seeing as we were student if we were entitled to any form of discount. I had an email back from Vince Pol, stating that we were allowed, that he liked our idea and that we had to pay a small discounted fee.  

 

 

Costume Post 2

Costume Post 2

Brief: This second costume post documents the connotations of the costumes we chose in our music video that were not covered in the first video.

Album Cover - Back Panel

Album Cover - Back Panel Creation

After the completion of our music video, we were also given the task to create an album cover to accompany it.

Creation of the back Panel:

To first Create the Back Panel of our album cover, you first had to make sure the dimensions of the document were accurate to the size of a real album cover. We made sure that the Width and Height were exactly 4.75 inches both ways as these are the dimensions for a real album cover.

 

After I had created the new project with the correct dimensions, I quickly created a word document to create the two lines that fragment the back of the album cover. I click on insert and the click on the line to create one.

I then copied the line over to the Photoshop Document and positioned it into the bottom left corner. I also copied it into the top right hand corner so we know where the refraction will take place.

I then added a Bar-code in the bottom right corner, a 'Compact Disc Digital Audio' logo and a Copyright logo in the bottom left corner followed a caption reserving all rights of the music on the album to the artists. By doing this, it gives our Album cover a more authentic and real to life look and also creates a professional look as well.   

I then wrote out the songs that would 'be' on our music video. But before this, I went onto Dafont.com (which is a free font downloading website) to find a suitable font for our album cover. After getting to the homepage I typed in 'Futurist' in the search bar and decided on a font called 'Futurist Fixed'. From them i downloaded the font and added it to the font list that is already on the Mac.

After I had downloaded the font, I wrote out the different songs that were on our bands album. We felt the spacing and lettering of the font was ideal for an indie album cover and suited the futuristic and fragmented look we was going for. 

Finally, I placed the band name and album name above the songs that are in the album. As the last part of the band name 'Cardinal Rabbits' went across the fragmentation line, I converted the text to a 'Smart Object' by right clicking the layer that the text was placed in and clicking on 'Convert to Smart Object', this allowed me to edit the text as if it was a picture. I then cut the part of the word 'Rabbits' that crossed the line and placed it over the other side of the line, but as the line represented fragmentation I positioned the other part of the word just above the original to give it the fragmented look we set as our theme which would run throughout our album cover.  

 

Below is the finished version for the back of the album cover I created:

 

 

 

Album Cover - Drummer Panel

Album Cover - Drummer Panel

Brief:  This post explains and shows the creative process taken in the construction of the drummer panel of the CD cover.

Instead of using Photoshop CS6 - which was available on the school Apple Macs, I used an open-source software I was very familiar with due to using it frequently in the past.

First of all, a background was made by first making a grey to black gradient from the top left hand corner to the bottom right. Grey lines were then implemented  using a grey shade from the middle of the gradient so that lines closer to the top left would appear darker than the background and lines closer to the bottom right would appear lighter than the background.

A new image file was then created at the size 4.75inch x 4.75inch as after some research, we determined with was the size of an average CD cover. The background we created was then scaled to this size on the new image file.

 

The previously taken picture of our drummer (portrayed by Charles Frost) was then carefully cut out to remove the background.

This image was then added to our main image file, the contrast and saturation was edited slightly then this entire image was compressed and exported as one version of our Drummer Panel.

A second version was also made in which we continued are previous established theme of optics and refraction. In this version, one of the lines in the background was brought into the foreground and the image of the drummer was cut into two, which did not match up perfectly.

 

Changes

Changes

Brief: This video goes through a few of the changes we made to our sequence after the initial plan but before we started shooting.

Album Cover Design (Drawing)

This is the album cover that I have hand drawn. I followed a studio types theme and also influences of the main band member and the ties that he wears during the music video. I chose this as I thought it would be an easy theme to portray throughout the different panels of the album cover and one that they audience could easily understand. 

 

 

 

However we have decided to go with James' storyboard as we all felt as a group that it represented our genre the best an we could add our own interesting touches to the different panels through the idea of fragmentation. We also felt that it would appeal to our target audience more as the abstract theme we are going for is eye catching and slightly D.I.Y looking, which is a common convention for indie rock album covers. 

Album Cover Design (Hand drawn)

Album Cover Design

Brief: This is the initial design I drafted in order to illustrate the ideas I had for our CD cover.

Images 1-3

These images are all close ups of the band members using a wide lens (otherwise known as fish-eye). I feel this lene type will be effective as it is unusual and quirky (similarly to our artists) and is inline with the theme of the album, which is optics and refraction, as the imagines look like they are from the perspective of a convex lens such as a key-hole viewer.

Image 4

This is the front cover of our album, which features all of our artists, two of which are upside down. This is because our theme is light refraction and optics (thus the album name Optik) and the line through the middle with artists on each side illustrates this theme as it seems like a broken mirror of some sort. The band name and album name is also present as is the convention of album covers. The mispelling of the word 'Optik' demonstrates the band's indie and almost rebellious nature. This is because mispellings are usually associating with younger generations who 'do not play by the rules' so to speak.

Image 5

This is the back of the album which features all the tracks of the album, as per convention. This side continues the theme of optics and refraction as it has two mirror lines in the frame.

Image 6

This is a close up of a camera lens which again follows the theme of optics.

Album Cover Research

Giving our Music Video the 'Indie' feel - Draft 3

Once we had finished our second draft, he had to take a step back and reflect on how we gave our music video the indie genre feel and how else we could improve this.

During the process of our third, we found that the colour we had put in when editing the green screen sections were too bright, therefore we changed them from sharp and harsh, such as electric blues and harsh reds, to more 'matte' and calm colours, teals and gentle greens. Also the use of the colour constantly changing and blending into each other gives a more independent and different feel to the video instead of using just a set number of block colours.

We also re-shot to the studio footage on the 1st of December. To give the shots a more independent feel we made sure we included a looser frame to show the props and the background that we had made. We wanted to included the lights trailing out of shot both sides and the addition of the 'homemade studio background' prop create 'do it yourself', home grown and self funded connotations towards the video. We found this was a key element we wanted to portray throughout our music video.

 

Also, we felt that the use of the various types of tape on the drums can help to give a tacky, cheap and rundown feel towards the instruments and can also be used to further emphasise the 'self funded' connotation we wanted to portray. 

Saturation

Saturation

Brief: This video shows how we used saturation to alter the mood and tone of our shots

Storytelling with Saturation

The use of saturation within our piece allowed us to outline the abstract narrative for the audience.

The low saturation at the beginning of the sequence demonstrates to the audience that at this point in the story, the life of the female character is boring and dull. The fact that the saturation increases greatly during the one shot of the band's front-man foreshadows the events that happen later on in the video.

Low saturation is also used during the scene in the city (Camden Town). This is to contrast with the high saturation used in the following field scene. This portrays the idea to the audience that she has transitioned from seeing the world in a dull and boring way to having a much more positive perspective.

The fact that this high saturation remains after the field scene when she returns to the town and later to her house shows that the she has learned a lesson of sorts and now sees the entire world in a more positive way. This gives our narrative a story arch rather than just simply a series of things happening, giving our sequence more meaning and depth for our audience to appreciate.

The first and last shot, as shown above, are framed in exactly the same way. The main difference between them is the saturation being very low in the former and very high in the latter. This technique rounds off the narrative and compares the mood/tone at the beginning of the sequence with that at the end of the sequence.

Green Screen Ultra Key Tutourial